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In this article, Rylie Revercomb talks about multiple popular aesthetics from the early 2000s and how they have defined childhoods.
2000s Aesthetics
2000s Aesthetics
By Rylie Revercomb
By Rylie Revercomb
Any kid who grew up in the 2000s or the early 2010s is probably questioning why the world looks so boring right now. Sure, adults are telling their now-grown-up kids that “Life was just more colorful when you were a kid” and “You just used to see the world in a different way.” But is that really true? Even comparing the toys we played with ten years ago to the toys that parents buy for their kids now, there is a stark contrast. Why is everything so muted and gray nowadays? Well, it’s all thanks to one of the most bland, soulless aesthetics ever created. Corporate Memphis. Popularized in 2017, largely thanks to the ever-growing social media platform Facebook, Corporate Memphis was one of the first aesthetics to make people crave flat designs and simple shapes. Skeumorphism, fun 3-D shapes that focused on realism, quickly went down the drain in favor of this much easier art style. The style in itself is not necessarily bad, but it unfortunately started a chain reaction that led to the death of colorful and fun branding. Corporate Memphis’ simplicity caused a mass homogenization that made so many brands look identical. It is why so many buildings have no shape, color, or any discernible personality. Many millennials are obsessed with the no-color movement, AKA the “beige-mom” fad that has been floating around on basically every social media site that can be found on the app store. Many teenagers and young adults, on the other hand, long for glossy shapes and fun colors, and have been begging for fun themes to be resurrected. Hence, random aesthetics are suddenly popping up all over people’s “For You” pages. Color is making a comeback, and there are plenty of niche and well-known aesthetics that are waiting for a chance to return to the spotlight.
One of the most common and most nostalgic aesthetics is the very popular Frutiger Aero design. This aesthetic practically birthed the internet, and was coined by Sofi Lee to describe everyone’s computer theme from roughly 2005-2013. Frutiger Aero was initially created to convince people that technology was a part of a good future. The realistic designs, also known as skeuomorphism, combined technology and nature to give off a sense of utopia. Many accounts that romanticize the aesthetic often envision it as “The future we were promised.” And, while Frutiger Aero may be the main aesthetic, it grew so popular that it even led to the creation of a Frutiger Family.
Popular subgeneres in the Frutiger Family include DORFic, Frutiger Metro, and Helvetica Aqua Aero. These designs focused on new aspects of the style-- such as DORFic being primarily known for its bright orange colors and cyber-metro design. Popular website Skeuoss, which specializes in the Frutiger aesthetic, says, “The DORFic aesthetic remains a vivid example of how art imitates life and vice versa, especially in the context of advancing technologies and their impact on our daily lives and societal structure.” Aesthetics like this helped internet newcomers grow more comfortable with the idea of accepting technology in their lives.
Art for the Frutiger Family was comforting and captivating, and even drew in designers and architects. This led to brands like McDonalds creating quote-unquote, “Frutiger Aero restaurants”. Unfortunately, this aesthetic was the first one squashed by Corporate Memphis’ big, beige foot, with the last console utilizing the aesthetic being the Wii-U in 2012.
Before Frutiger Aero, pretty much every '90s and early 2000s kid was much more familiar with the zany art style of Wacky PoMo-- also known as Wacky PostModern. Similar to the previous aesthetic, Wacky PoMo utilizes bright colors and fun shapes… but that is where the similarities stop. While later designers became obsessed with merging technology and nature, Wacky PoMo went all in on exaggerated motifs and leaned heavily into explosions of neon colors and crazy architecture shapes that look like they are straight out of Spy Kids. According to Cari, a website primarily dedicated to various aesthetics and designs, Wacky PoMo is “cartoonified industrial vernacular, and light gross-out kids’ humor.” While that definition may sound like a modge-podge of sloppy words and absolute gunk, it only makes it a better testament to the aesthetic’s art style. After all, the word “Wacky” is there for a reason. The entire point of the aesthetic was to appeal to kids, with it often being advertised to sell “kidz culture”. Yes, kids with a “z”. We’re cool here.
Speaking of cool, one of the best aspects about this aesthetic is that it was built off of a very popular aesthetic that adults liked at the time-- Post Modern. The main difference between Wacky Pomo and regular Post Modern is the use of colors. Wacky Pomo focuses on large amounts of bright, eye-catching colors, such as acid green, bright purple, and saturated teals, oranges, and yellows. Zig-zags, blobs, spirals, and other fun motifs were used to draw in children to fun advertising. Places like McDonald’s, Nickelodeon headquarters, children’s museums, candy stores, food courts, and pop-ups used this style until it was squashed in the late 2000s. This was due to claims that it was dated, noisy, and overly commercial, and was not fitting with the new kids’ culture. With that, Wacky PoMo vanished, until social media revived it.
With nostalgia for the '90s and 2000s on the rise, Wacky Pomo is front and center as the aesthetic that defined kids' culture in the '90s. Our colorful, whimsy king is back front and center, with even newer generations begging for broader, clashier themes and branding.
In a complete 180 from the last theme, we are moving on to the much warmer, softer colors and vibes of the 2000s Tuscan Mom aesthetic. Anyone and everyone who embodied this aesthetic desperately wanted to be that rich mom in the early 2000s. It is the kind of old-money aesthetic that is accompanied by warm brown, cream, and honey colors that blend perfectly with brick and orange lighting in a cozy kitchen. However, while this aesthetic may also go hand-in-hand with interior design, it is most affiliated with fashion. Specifically, those who go for the “Tuscan Mom” look typically wear low-rise flare jeans, halter tops, and silky blouses-- and they accessorize the look with chunky sunglasses, bangles, and huge gold earrings. Blowouts and big interiors are used to describe the overall look of this aesthetic… which is pretty much the opposite of the next style: the Twilight/2000s Autumn aesthetic.
Unlike the 2000s Tuscan Mom aesthetic, which thrives on warm colors and rich attire, the Twilight aesthetic loves unsaturated colors and comfy clothes, like flannels and cardigans. This aesthetic was most popularized by the movie that shares its name, and the iconic fashion that Kristin Stewart sported as Bella throughout the films. An article on WordPress says about her style that “Practically every female lead starring in a 2000s or early 2010s paranormal romance has this aesthetic… So you heard it here first, Bella was a trendsetter.” While the typical vibe of her style was originally considered “norm-core”, Twilight became so influential that it created this popular sub-aesthetic. Even today, the style of the series is still so influential that kids who were not even born when the last movie came out are still sporting Twilight merch and inspired outfits.
Both the 2000s Tuscan Mom and Twilight/Autumn aesthetic are still widely used today, with many rich-mom influencers sporting the first and average teens who idolize the 2000s wearing the second. A good aesthetic can last at least a decade, and both of these are good examples of that.
Finally, we get into our last two aesthetics. Both of these have to do with nationally popularized aesthetics that have inhabited two specific everyday places: coffee shops and museums. Global Village Coffeehouse, while it may sound like a real place to order a drink from, is only the name used to describe the ever-popular interior design theme of coffeeshops and places like Panera Bread and Borders bookstores from the '80s-2000s. This style is characterized by earthy tones, stereotypical “tribal” images/motifs, and woodcut styling. Sometimes, Wacky PoMo could bleed in a little bit due to some of the crazy interior design choices in these shops, but the overall vibe was not supposed to be zany and out-of-this-world. Quite the opposite, actually, since the aesthetic goes for a warm and nostalgic vibe. This is very similar to a popular 2000s museum aesthetic: Utopian Scholastic.
Of course, pretty much every child growing up from the '80s to 2000s is going to be familiar with the word Scholastic, given that basically every child had a Scholastic Book Fair pop-up at their school or used Scholastic books in their classes. The aesthetic itself was a representation of optimism and a “post-history” view of the world, which explains why it was mostly popular prior to the tragic events of 9/11. It features high-contrast collages of realistic objects and very early CGI, in hopes of making learning seem attractive and adventurous. This is why the aesthetic was used in museums, schools, and science documentaries!
Y’know Bill Nye… The well-loved science guy? Most of his videos incorporated this very same aesthetic. Creators on TikTok and Instagram often cite Bill Nye as the physical embodiment of Utopian Scholastic, such as @vhsninja, who compiled a video of Utopian Scholastic images and titled it “This is how an episode of bill nye felt.” The classic adventurous feel of the Bill Nye videos, in particular, inspired kids to learn, accomplishing exactly what Utopian Scholastic wanted to in the first place! This is why, even today, you can access Bill Nye’s iconic kids' show on the official website BillNye.com-- because, even now, we are still looking for a way for our kids to learn in a creative and fun way.
This is the reason why Global Coffeehouse and Utopian Scholastic go so well together: because they can both make the mundane feel exciting and wonderful. Something as simple as eating at Panera Bread with your family on a random day in 2009 becomes a feel-good, cozy memory about fifteen years down the road, due to the interior setting and how whimsical it was at the time. This is similar to how watching an episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy became popular not just when episodes aired from 1993 to 1998 but also for many years later, due to how fun it made science feel. Both of these aesthetics made things kids usually would not find fun suddenly interesting.
Overall, the reason these aesthetics are really making a comeback is not only because of the nostalgia they induce but also because of the excitement that follows fun colors, shapes, and brilliant ideas. Unfortunately, due to the influence of aesthetics like Corporate Memphis and designers' need for simplicity and cost efficiency, there are not as many prominent, fun and engaging designs right now. The rise of these nostalgic aesthetics is mostly to combat the sad, pale colors and vibes that so often float around now. People are encouraging others to leave the bright and fun staples in their houses, like old, colorful curtains and “tacky” strips of colorful wallpaper that accent the walls. 2000s aesthetics are being revived because we want to find the joy in design again, leading to this sudden romanticization of earlier times. After all, it is through creativity that we find the best of the human mind.
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